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For long-time Fort McMurray resident Jessica Weber, it was a surreal experience returning to the home where she had grown up after last May’s devastating fire. Fire crews weren’t able to reach the house, which was on an acreage that had been in her family for three generations. 

When faced with the challenge of reaching people in remote communities sometimes the best option is also pretty low-tech. Here’s how the Red Cross is delivering healthcare, with the help of bicycles. 

A house on the river in a small, picture-esque community sounds like the perfect place for a retired couple to settle. But when flooding caused water damage to their Clarence-Rockland home, Sandra and Gordon Killins share their experience coming home to pick up the pieces. 

Between building the world’s greatest playlist and figuring out the best selfie destinations - or where Canada’s weirdest museum is -  it’s useful to take a few steps to make sure your fantastic road trip is also a safe road trip. 

They shuffle across the dirt threshold. The older ones lean on others for support. Some are too weak to walk and are transported in on a mattress by a team of concerned relatives. Younger children are carried, limp and listless in the arms of their worried parents. All in obvious signs of distress. They do not know what’s wrong with them. They only hope the medical staff of the Canadian Red Cross Health Emergency Response Unit (ERU) can help them feel better.

Darrin Bourque peers out across what remains of the forest that surrounds his family’s trapline. Scorched trees, reminiscent of giant toothpicks, replace the once dense boreal forest associated with the landscape of northern Alberta.

Read how the Canadian Red Cross, with support from the Government of Canada, was able to provide much needed support to vulnerable communities during Hurricane Matthew in Haiti. When the storm hit, and as time followed, the Red Cross worked to meet immediate needs on the ground, provide important supplies, and travel to hard-to-reach areas to deliver medical care. 

Whether you know a kid who is naturally clumsy or precociously adventurous, these tips and resources will help keep them safe.